Love has been the eternal theme of human beings since ancient times, and no matter which country, it has its own Valentine's Day. In China, the Qixi Festival on the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh month is such a festival, which originated from ancient times and has been passed down to the present day, and has become a popular festival for many young couples.
And the Qixi Festival, which has lasted for thousands of years, has also given birth to a unique Qixi literature. Literati in different periods had different understandings of "Tanabata literature", but they all took love as the theme.
Qixi Festival, naturally associated with the Cowherd Star and Vega Star in the sky, their meeting is impressive, even if they only see it once a year, they are deeply in love. This kind of affection and kindness made the literati praise.
The love story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl in the Book of Poetry has evolved for thousands of years, and has gradually formed a complete love legend in the Wei and Jin dynasties. The literati began to depict this story in poetry, such as "Morning Glory, the Han Girl of the Bright River" in "Nineteen Ancient Poems: Morning Glory".
At this time, the love component has become stronger, and the literati also have a deeper understanding and aesthetic awareness of the love of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, believing that although their love is thousands of miles apart, it is an eternal true love.
Since the end of the Han Dynasty, people have developed a deep aesthetic sense of love for the stars in the sky, which continues to this day. Especially on the day of Qixi Festival, the poems created by the literati are full of wishes and compassion for the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl.
They prayed for the love couple to stay together for a long time, but at the same time grieved for the short time they were together. This deep understanding of love in real life makes people cherish the difficulty of love even more.
The poet of the Wei and Jin dynasties once wrote: "The stars in the sky are gradually personified, and with emotions and stories, the Cowherd Star and the Vega Star have also changed from cold stars to enviable and sentimental love partners." ”
In the poetry of the literati, this concept of love is fully embodied.
In addition to describing the love story of the two protagonists, the Tanabata story also involves some animals that symbolize love, such as the old ploughing cow, the magpie and the happy spider. These animals became symbols of love in the literati's writings, especially the old ploughing oxen, and were often used to symbolize unwavering love.
Therefore, the animal images in the Qixi story have undoubtedly become one of the important elements of the literati's expression of the theme of love.
In the love legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, the selfless dedication of the old ploughing cow and the brave sacrifice of the magpie make this story even more moving. The old cultivator accompanied the cowherd, helped him find his wife, and even lent him his own skin to chase the Weaver Girl, such dedication and affection made people full of admiration and touching for their love.
And magpies play an important role in it, although they are only animals, but can understand human emotions, in order to help the Cowherd and Weaver Girl reunite, they do not hesitate to sacrifice themselves, every year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, they will form a huge magpie bridge, let the Cowherd and Weaver Girl meet, this is not only their bravery and tenacity, but also their deep admiration and pursuit of love.
In different legends, many birds have joined the ranks of the construction, and the blue bird is one of them, symbolizing the joy spider. Different from our common spiders, the Joy Spider is a red spider that is good at weaving webs, which makes the literati deeply feel its resemblance to the Weaver Girl, and thus develop a love for the Joy Spider.
In literary creation, the spider is also often involved. The animals in the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl attracted the attention of the literati, who saw in it the persistent pursuit and deep yearning for love, which has been deeply engraved in people's hearts, and no one can not envy eternal love.
Therefore, it is natural for the literati to revolve around this theme.
In the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, while there are enviable lovers, there are also some disgusting characters. They can only see each other once a year, which makes one wonder who caused the lovers' separation.
Therefore, the literati took the imagination of the gods as the core, and used the phenomena that the ancient people could not explain with advanced science and technology to express the importance of faith. Among the people, the Emperor of Heaven and the Queen Mother are the most widely believed gods.
In the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, these immortals play such a role.
Literati, as the most sensitive group of people, are always full of twists and turns in their pursuit of true love. They are convinced that the obstacles of the gods exist, and the obstacles of the human system and reality are equally unavoidable.
Through their poems, they depict the love of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, and at the same time, they also allude to all kinds of troubles in reality. Although they could not intervene directly, they still tried to convey the love in their hearts.
In the ancient society based on the belief in immortals, Qixi literature was full of the pain of love and the reluctance to part. The literati spontaneously formed a kind of immortal imagination as a carrier to express the tribulations and separations in love.
In the same way, water was regarded as the source of life, and for ancient peoples, it was the basis for life. In the myth of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, Tianhe became the way for the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl to meet, but in the later period, Tianhe became an insurmountable obstacle for the two.
Therefore, the literati used water as a symbol to create a kind of Qixi literature that depicts the joys and sorrows of love.
Tianhe is an important water source for the survival of the gods, and it is also the place where the beautiful love of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl meets. For human beings, water is an indispensable part of life.
However, the Tianhe River has also become an obstacle to the meeting of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, and the flood has brought great threats to life, and its irregular flooding has caused great trouble to people's lives.
As a result, the literati's feelings about water became more complex. They not only longed to meet love, but also hoped to express their complex feelings about water through their poems, such as "between the water, the veins are silent".
Qixi Festival, originated from Qin, flourished in the Han Dynasty, and perfected in the Wei and Jin dynasties, the most famous mythical story is the love of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. The literati, as the most emotional people, not only took the worship of the stars as the core, but also created Qixi literature, praising the love of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl; It also found inspiration from the animal images in the story, and formed a Tanabata literature with animal images as the core expression.
At the same time, the hatred of the villains in the story gave birth to a kind of Qixi literature with the imagination of the gods as the core expression. Finally, the extension of Tianhe also gives people a deeper understanding of the eternity and tenacity of love.